Crime Scene Or Rescue? Man in Chimney Causes a Clash

By MICHAEL BRICK

Published: June 28, 2003

It started with a hapless would-be burglar stuck in a chimney in Queens. Add a few hours in the sweltering city, a scuffle between members of elite police and fire rescue units and a descending horde of television cameras, and all of a sudden the mayor was calling an emergency meeting with his top police and fire officials.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who spent yesterday morning at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem promoting the opening of the city's swimming pools, found himself standing soaking wet in front of television cameras, answering questions about a firefighter's arrest with a vow to ''get on top of this before it gets out of control.''

''Hopefully, it was just some tempers going a little bit overboard when it was very hot and when they were under stress in trying to save somebody's life and also work a crime scene,'' he said at the pool, wearing a T-shirt that memorialized police officers and firefighters killed on 9/11.

Mr. Bloomberg called a meeting with Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta because, according to the mayor's spokesman, Edward Skyler, ''if you express distaste for seemingly minor incidents, hopefully you will prevent major ones.''

This particular seemingly minor incident began just before 3 a.m. at Luigi Italian Restaurant in Jackson Heights, where a three-course dinner can be had for $19.58 on a weekday. The restaurant is in a one-story, red brick building with a triangular parapet and a sloped, tiled roof. Inside the chimney is a round metal shaft with a diameter of about a foot, and it was into this shaft that a man named William Quinga, who is 22 and also goes by the name of William Vermeo, climbed a few hours after the restaurant had closed for the night, according to the police. He got stuck and began screaming.

A 911 call from a passer-by summoned regular firefighters and police officers from the 115th Precinct, as well as members of the police Emergency Service Unit and Rescue 4 of the Fire Department. Both units specialize in getting people out of tight spaces.

While Mr. Quinga (or Mr. Vermeo) waited in the shaft, Detective Ronald Griffiths of the police and Firefighter John T. Gaine quarreled. Fire and police officials agreed that the topic of their argument was whether it was appropriate for Firefighter Gaine to be in the restaurant, which was sealed as a crime scene. Detective Griffiths arrested Firefighter Gaine and issued him a desk appearance ticket for ''obstructing governmental administration.''

But Firefighter Gaine said last night that the detective had told him to leave the restaurant, grabbed his arm and shoved him so that he tripped over a toolbox and hurt his knee. He was treated at Elmhurst Hospital Center. ''I was doing my job, what I was told to do by my superiors,'' he said, ''and I was thrown on the ground and placed under arrest.''

The chief spokesman for the Fire Department, Francis X. Gribbon, said, ''When the district attorney reviews the facts here, they'll find that he was merely trying to do his job.''

Disputes between members of the two departments at rescue scenes have been common for decades. They have been so numerous that the phrase ''battle of the badges'' was coined to describe them. After the World Trade Center attack, the departments vowed to improve their practices and exchanged liaison officers. The two commissioners also pledged to meet more frequently.

At the scene yesterday, the two sets of rescuers disagreed about the best way to extricate Mr. Quinga from the chimney.

The firefighters went up to the roof and wanted to pull him out from above. But the police eventually ripped down the wood paneling covering the shaft inside the restaurant and smashed through a layer of bricks. They charged Mr. Quinga with burglary, criminal trespassing and possession of burglary tools.

They left a pile of bricks on the sidewalk and an industrial trash can full of dust inside the restaurant.

Its owners, Michelina Napolitano and her daughter Antoinette Samyn, spent the morning straightening up and serving free veal parmigiana sandwiches to television reporters and cameramen.

Ms. Samyn said that her sister Josephine Napolitano had suggested to the police and firefighting units a way to free Mr. Quinga without smashing walls. She wanted them to pour olive oil into the shaft so that they could grease up Mr. Quinga and pop him right out.

But Ms. Samyn said that it was probably for the best that the authorities had ignored the suggestion.

''Virgin olive oil is expensive,'' she said. ''My mother would have been annoyed.''

Photo: Michelina Napolitano, an owner of Luigi Italian Restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, where rescuers freed a man who had been stuck in a chimney shaft. (Richard Lee for The New York Times)(pg. B6)